Contents

Description

The Arch Site is a special object that combines properties of a standard FreeCAD group object and Arch objects. It is particularly suited for representing a whole project site, or terrain. In IFC-based architectural work, it is mostly used to organize your model, by containing building objects. The site is also used to manage and display a physical terrain, and can computes volumes of earth to be added or removed.

Usage

Optionally, select one or more objects to be included in your new site.

Options

After creating a site, you can add more objects to it by drag and dropping them in the Tree View or by using the Arch Add tool. This only determines which object is part of the given site, and has no effect on the terrain itself.

You can remove objects from a site by drag and dropping them out of it the Tree View or by using the Arch Remove tool

You can add a terrain object by editing the Site's DataTerrain property. The terrain must be an open shell or surface.

You can add volumes to be added or subtracted from the base terrain, by double-clicking the Site, and adding objects to its Subtractions or Additions groups. The objects must be solids.

The DataExtrusion Vector property can be used to solve some problems that can appear when working with subtractions and additions. In order to perform those additions/subtractions, the terrain surface is extruded into a solid, which is then appropriately unioned/subtracted. Depending on the terrain topology, this extrusion might fail with the default extrusion vector. You might therefore be able to remedy the problem by changing this to a different value.

Properties

Data

DataTerrain: The base terrain of this site

DataAddress: The street and housenumber of this site

DataPostal Code: The postal or zip code of this site

DataCity: The city of this site

DataCountry: The country of this site

DataLatitude: The latitude of this site

DataLongitude: The longitude of this site

DataUrl: An url that shows this site in a mapping website

DataProjected Area: The area of the projection of this object onto the XY plane

DataPerimeter: The perimeter length of this terrain

DataAddition Volume: The volume of earth to be added to this terrain

DataSubtraction Volume: The volume of earth to be removed from this terrain

DataExtrusion Vector: An extrusion vector to use when performing boolean operations

DataRemove Splitter: Remove splitters from the resulting shape

DataDeclination: The angle between the true North and the North direction in this document, that is, the Y axis. introduced in version 0.18 This means that by default North points to the Y axis, and East to the X axis; the angle increments counterclockwise. This property was previously known as DataNorth Deviation.

Typical workflow

Start by creating an object that represents your terrain. It must be an open surface, not a solid. For example, it is easy to import mesh data, that can be turned into a Part Shape from menu Part → Create Shape from Mesh. Then, create a Site object, and set its DataTerrain property to the Part we just created:

Create some volumes (they must be solids) that represent the areas that you wish to be excavated or filled. Double-click the Site object in the Tree View, and add these volumes to the Additions or Subtractions groups. Click OK.

The site geometry will be recomputed and the areas, perimeter, and volumes properties recalculated.

Note: If you don't have Ladybug, pysolar is still supported to generate solar diagrams, but not wind roses. Pysolar 0.7 or above is required; this version only works with Python 3. If you require this feature with Python 2, you should have Pysolar 0.6 as this is the last version that works with Python 2. However, Ladybug is a much more powerful tool that will probably be used more in the future, so we recommend using it instead of pysolar. Ladybug can be installed simply via pip.

Solar diagram

As long as the pysolar module is present, a solar diagram can be added to the site. Set the longitude, latitude and declination angles as appropriate, as well as an adequate scale for the size of your model.

Please note that Pysolar 0.7 or above is required, and this version only works with Python 3.